A Righteous Path
by chinochan-inulover
Summary: RotS AU. Forsaken, Padmé finds the will to live in the twins and in the rebellion fighting for democracy. Even if her husband is now her greatest foe. Anakin oscillates between seeking forgiveness or power and the burden of such power on his shoulders. Which side of the force to favor? Their love had been difficult before, but now threads on impossible.


All was pain and loss.

This was how the world would undoubtedly be without Padmé.

He remembered all too well dreams not acted upon on time that ultimately had led to his mother's demise. He remembered too much of the corroding guilt eating away at his chest, the failure weighting down his shoulders, revenge clenching his fingers like iron around the grip of his lightsaber. He remembered painfully the scorching tears of fatherless Anakin as he rolled his only ascendant's body on dirty rags snatched from the houses whom the owners he had destroyed. The feeling of collapse of disappointment on himself weighting upon him once again, when his bloodied hands reflected something that was certainly not a good Jedi still haunted him.

Then again, a righteous Jedi wouldn't have married.

Therefore, the path to the dark side offered to him to Darth Sidious, former Chancellor Palpatine, while not easy, had been almost obvious. Necessary. Inexorable.

There was no living without Padmé either, so one could say it had been a selfish choice, had it not been for the life she was carrying inside her that was _his _as much as hers. Had it not been for that redeeming beacon of purity he would have been grounded for the knowledge that what he was trying to do was to steal from the Force what it had showed it wanted to claim.

But he would have done it either way.

Mustafar was too hot even for someone grown on Mos Espa.

It was coarse and the air hard to breathe, the splashes of the waves of lava triggered thunder in his chest along with the march of the troopers behind him on arrival.

There was wrongness in his doings and he knew it. There was darkness enveloping his thoughts and heart. But on the reverse side of the coin he was rejoicing in the coursing of rushing power in his whole system, like an overload clouding his judgment already veiled by the thought of saving his wife from the inevitable demise awaiting her. The power was so heavy and so light at the same time, so _easy. _Everything was so much easy if it was done _his way…_

The pain of the Jedi insurgence against all that he believed was forgotten or buried deep beneath the power to save Padmé, he knew only that he couldn't feel it, he knew only that he couldn't think of the ripping of youngling's bodies by his lightsaber. He couldn't think of it. It had been unavoidable, he was fulfilling his destiny, Chosen One or not. He was saving the woman he loved. And their offspring.

The seeds of doubt were scorched by the heat of Mustafar and of Sith dark power rushing in his ears, mistaken for blood.

A wave of scorching, foul air ruffled the hood of his cloak against the scar next to his right yellowed eye and he took a deep breath igniting his weapon, sensing his squadron behind him and remembering the feel of the Naboo senator small body enclosed in his, her warmth and the protruding curve of the life in her residing just the night before the journey here. The fear of losing that feeling forever empowered the dark side inside him.

The age of a New Republic was to come, one without treasons from the order which had never fully trusted him, which had restrained him, never allowed him to explore his full power, fearful of losing their power. Even Obi-wan who was the father, the older brother whom he had counted on as the single person in his life to whom he could always recur, his only family aside from a missed nostalgic image of his mother. Obi-Wan had certainly never trusted him fully. _Him, _who would supposedly save their religion! Maybe ending them was the balance they all expected from him.

A Republic of peace and justice. One he would build next to Master Sidious and Padme, and their child.

His feet carried him decidedly to the building where he felt the presence of the Separatist Leaders.

This war would be over.

This all pain and loss and suffering would come to an end.

_Vader _stepped forward.

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Padmé felt her whole body quake in anxiety. There was something terribly wrong. She knew it in her bones, in her mind, in her heart, and in her heavy pregnancy. In the balcony from which she had watched her husband depart, her dark brown eyes surveyed the activity in the skies of Coruscant wearily, on edge. It would come, she felt it. It would come sooner or later and the fake numbness he had left her in would dissipate like a haze breached by the sun rays-

"Senator, Master Kenobi is here to see you"

Dormé's voice was light and experimenting as if she was expecting a brusque answer from a very pregnant mistress, sensing her clear distress. The feelings in the handmaiden's perspective had probably been enhanced by the worried, somehow guilty demeanor of the Jedi Master waiting in the living room balcony for her mistress. He had certainly looked disgruntled and agitated, and so was the stance of Mistress Padmé.

The senator had not been able to let go of political responsibilities when Queen Jamilia had requested her for the seat in the Senate for Naboo, a position the current chancellor had once occupied. And it had not been greed for power or money that had pushed Amidala to that seat. It had been duty to her planet and sovereign and most of all the belief that the Galaxy could be better should anyone attempt to do so.

Dormé couldn't imagine it was easy for Padmé hearing the announcement of a First Galactic Empire with Palpatine as head, and liberty behind, crushed beneath a chorus of thunderous applause.

Fear had conquered all of their hearts, of the ones who cheered the decision of the chancellor, and her lady suffered.

Not only that but Master Anakin had stopped by the night before, and her lady had not slept since then, had been unresponsive and merged in apathy since then. Almost frighteningly, Padmé had been worse and worse each second that passed, and although Dormé had readied her for bed, she could bet on her life the young senator hadn't slept a wink, because when the handmaiden had risen from her own troubled rest an ungodly wee hours, the senator was already in the bedroom's balcony, her eyes searching the horizon worriedly, hands encasing each other frenetically, one occasionally rubbing the large bump of life in her stomach.

Padmé's longing eyes seemed a bit lost at the announcement. It was transparent how much she craved an arrival, but clearly not that of Obi-Wan, but of his old padawan and her loving husband.

Blinking slowly and dragging a tired hand across the expanse of her heavy abdomen, the dark blue fur of her robe dragged slowly behind her as she approached the handmaiden, following her to receive the master Jedi.

The tumult of keeping her feelings regarding Anakin (to which Master Kenobi was specifically sensitive) in check was especially troubling, because she could barely keep herself from breaking down and crying her head off. And as much as their secret was crucial, she was simply too worried with him to care anymore.

He had departed many times from her with promises of a quick safe return and pleads of waiting patiently from her part, but this time it was much too different. Anakin had been bothered for some time now, and when inquiring about it she always got the feeling to get only half the truth, as if he was holding back with trying to protect her.

The hormones were pressuring her, her fright about losing him constricting her heart, the fright about Obi-Wan knowing and what he would do with such information now that the Order was no longer within the Republic-, the Empire, boundaries and alliances… Had he remained faithful to Palpatine and the Senate? Had the order felt so terrifyingly affronted by the declaration of Empire, the declaration of death of democracy, as had she?

Had they betrayed their allegiances? Or had they questioned themselves, as had she towards the end, if they were on the right side of the war?

It was when she faced his exhausted expression, eyes that told of a man aged beyond his years, it was when she veil o shiny grief took over the dark depths of blue of his eyes that Senator Padmé Amidala started to feel the haze crumble lethargically.

"I came looking for Anakin."

Her chin quaked without her permission, and she turned away from him. The tears flooding her eyes and her hands jerking uncontrollably. She knew it must have been impossible for Obi-wan not to feel her turmoil. The tension building since she had seen the smoke going off on the Jedi temple, the night before. Unless… She turned to face him again, the thickness in her throat pushed down and rising back up when she understood that he seemed as nerve-wrecked ad she was, in his own way.

"He is not here, Master Kenobi…" Her eyes escaped his, and drifted downwards, the weight of their secret so guiltily heavy upon her on this hour of fright, now faced with Obi-Wan's fraternal concern.

"When was the last time you saw him?"

Caressing her stomach lightly she turned away from him once again, her tired feet carrying her towards the living room balcony, again her subconscious searching for a sense of freedom from the confinement of the 500 Republic.

Swiftly and slowly, the man she had known ten years before as a padawan followed her.

"Yesterday"

"Do you know where he is now?"

His somewhat condescending and soft spoken voice made her skin crawl as she recognized the hormones taking the best of her… But there was something else…. As if there was still haze to be dissipated, and he was just taking too damn long to explain to her what was going on. And she was sick of being in the dark regarding to what was going on around her, regarding her own life!

"No"

Her quick answer, she rationalized, was more out of habit than loyalty. She, usually, would have trusted Anakin to Obi-Wan any day. But after what her husband had trusted in her the night before… no matter that she had felt there was something wrong with his admission, she hadn't felt a lie from Anakin, and she was a politician, not a fool…

A little more agitated, the Jedi spoke up.

"Padmé" That was more intimate than they had been in years. Back when she was a 15 year old queen and he was a very dedicated padawan to a great master like Qui-Gon. "I need your help… He is in grave danger!"

And here started the hazing off, the blaring sun cutting through the numbness, as she spun to face him, worried etched on her every feature, the clogging of her throat threatening to close it.

"F-From the Sith?"

Defeat befell Obi-Wan's face as her perusing eyes watched the bobbing of his throat. His eyes fled from hers. Then they returned, those pits of sad blue, full of result.

"From himself." Swallowing again and caressing her bicep friendly, the Master Jedi let his worry sweep off of him in waves, as he looked support himself, in the contact.

"Padmé…" there it was again, the light, scorching and nauseating breaching her hazy numbness, dragging her up to awareness and knowledge. For moments she thought she would rather be ignorant than to know what was sure to be hard to acknowledge. Worse. Somehow she knew it would be true, it would make sense, it would fill in the gaps of everything that didn't make sense for her in the last months. The assurance of Obi-Wan's revolve in the next sentence made her weak to the knees. "Anakin has turned to the dark side."

The betrayal was so violent, the crumbling of everything she had believed for the last three years so devastating, that something revolted in her. Her baby inside her kicked, sensing her violent distress, and she felt like roaring in the protection of her loved one.

"You're wrong!" She couldn't afford to think how truthful it sounded, how much sense it made. "How could you even say that?"

"I have seen… a-a security hologram…of him-…" She saw suddenly how heavily the worlds were taking his toll on him, how the master turned bitterly in his weighty failure. His hand rose to his mouth as if to contain bile "- killing younglings…"

"Not Anakin!" her stomach rolled and nausea crashed into her gripping her insides like a vice. But the truth was beginning to sink in. Holes of unawareness and ignorance filled with the comprehension that Obi-Wan was telling her the truth. The cold defeating truth. "He couldn't"

Padmé had never known a more horrifying knowledge. Suddenly she remembered him a youngling too, departing from Naboo under the care of the man that now faced her with such dark defeat glossing his ice blue eyes, his clothes of a light sand colored hue, his hair trimmed for the exception of his little padawan honorable braid. He had killed before. Padmé was no stranger with the awareness that Anakin killed in the line of duty, she had witnessed it and although sorrowful, it was his duty, for the greater good, and Jedi killed only when in battle… But to have killed boys and girls no different (and yet so much so) from the boy she had met for the first time all those years ago on Tatooine…

The image of the boy who she had so many times mirrored in the child that even now grew in her womb, forsaken by his father. Her mind inevitably led her to a place where the only man she had ever truly loved slashed a children, their children in half with lightsaber she had grown accustomed as to symbolize his defense for his ideals, once _their _ideals. Their protection. Something she had once held in her hand because he had told her it was _his life._

The boy she had known wanted nothing but freedom to podrace and for Shmi.

Shmi's wise face had never completely dissolved in her mind's eye, and it had often come to mind when she discovered she was pregnant. She remembered all too well of Anakin's eyes filled with hatred when he had returned from his quest for his missing mother, only to return with a dead matter and some part of his youthful, boyish innocence lost.

The Jedi master who had before given her his back as he tried to pull himself together, turned suddenly a mist of concern and rage swirling in his usually calm demeanor.

"He was deceived by a lie… we all were!"

Her head rang with too much information. What? Who could have possibly tricked Anakin in such deeds? Was he not stronger than all the living Jedi? Was he not so powerful he would one day fulfill the prophecy of returning the force to its balance? How could he have been tricked? Nonetheless she irrationally clung to the thought. If he had been tricked, if someone had manipulated her husband, then maybe, just maybe he was not accountable for what he had done. Maybe she could hold on to _not being his fault. _

"It appears the Chancellor is behind everything, including the war. Palpatine is the Sith Lord we've been looking for"

As he approached her slowly, Padmé tried, she tried not to take her eyes of Obi-Wan explanation and let them fall to the mountain on her body. She tried not to circle her child from the harshness, the ice cold reality of what she was hearing.

She had since long decided the Chancellor was not to be trusted. Bail Organa and Mon Mothma had shared the feeling with her along with other pacifist senator who had defended the diplomatic way so many times against the escalation of the war. Worries she knew the Jedi council, as far as Master Yoda and Master Windu would go, shared as well. Palpatine had neglected to keep the democracy under his emergency powers and had also neglected to show any will to restore the Republic to its previous rule, clinging to his executive powers.

"After Count Dooku died, Anakin has become his new apprentice." Lost in her thoughts the Jedi Master words were washed away from far away in her consciousness.

A treacherous sob left her throat in a somersault announcing others. She tried to deny them the freedom but they kept raking her body, her shaking had seeking the couch behind her for support. Her heart hammered her ribs so forcefully she had trouble breathing.

She had always known, even felt, to some extent, his dark edge. She knew it was there, she had fallen in love with it too. She could never deny she craved his selfishness and cockiness and even the strong, intense, terrifying, emotions in him, as much as his rare moments of patience, his sometimes wise advices, his eagerness for her, his excitement in their love.

"I don't believe you" There was still rebellion in her, no matter her absolute trust in what her feelings and instincts told her. And what they told her was that it would undeniably be true, whether she wanted or not. Suddenly there was a bolt of fighting in her, ripping from the inside her, and when she was going to scream with him again, to deny again, her resolve faded to a broken "I can't…!"

She sank in the luxurious Nubian fabric covered velvet sofa with dullness. Stupidly she tried to draw something from within, rage, anger, hatred…love, forgiveness. But she could only feel the physical rack of her body with distant sobs, the tears trailing down her face cooled by the breeze ruffling her bound hair, the sinkin of the cushion next to her, as the crushed master of her fallen husband sat next to her and tried to reason with her.

"Padmé… I must find him"

The words suddenly weren't as far away, suddenly they were there, right next to her again, and she felt again. Horribly strong, a wave of love invaded her, it was wrong. She knew it. In her Senator Amidala reason voice something shouted from within that Anakin was now what she had always swore to try and defeat. He was the danger he, himself, had sheltered her before, even if in other forms. But in her core, in Padmé's heart, it was impossible to stop loving him. He was Ani, he was the most beautiful genuine person in the world, there was nothing greater in the world than their love, and the proof of it kicked repeatedly against her womb once again feeling her horrible distress.

And so, outrage filled her as she looked in the resolve etched in the face of the man who was stronger than her. The man who was still willing to do his duty above whatever feelings he had for his former apprentice. And he had them, she knew he had them. And if she hadn't known, she would quickly realize by the glassy moisture and the crack in his voice as he told her

"You're going to kill him… aren't you?"

"He has became a very great threat."

For a moment there was silence. For a moment she started to consider considering. But it was impossible. Unimaginable. Even if he had forsaken her, betrayed her. She could never bring death upon him.

"I can't"


End file.
